Passionate about IP! Since June 2003 the IPKat has covered copyright, patent, trade mark, info-tech, privacy and confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective. The team is Neil J. Wilkof, Annsley Merelle Ward, Darren Smyth, Nicola Searle, Eleonora Rosati, David Brophy, Alberto Bellan and Merpel, with contributions from Mark Schweizer. You're welcome to read, post comments and participate. You can email the Kats here

From October 2016 to March 2017 the team is joined by Guest Kats Rosie Burbidge and Eibhlin Vardy, and by InternKats Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo, Tian Lu and Hayleigh Bosher.

Monday, 8 September 2014

Refreshed by a fortnight's absence from the blogosphere, our dear friend Alberto Bellan returns to centre stage with his weekly round-ups of what you've missed if you were away last week. This is the tenth such post and we are grateful to those readers who have emailed or posted comments to the effect that they found them really useful -- and certainly a lot easier than wading through piles of old emails and blogposts in the hope of salvaging something of interest or importance. Before we go on to this week's summary of last week's posts, we just want to say another "thank-you" to guest Kat Rebecca for filling in so nobly during Alberto's well-earned break.Last week's posts (excluding the Monday Miscellany and other omnibus compilations) went like this:

Patents are the irresistible bait to which no
true practitioner can fail to rise -- and it is even more so when that IP right
meets the fabulous domain of life science, Jeremy says. Are you sceptical or
simply not an expert in the field? There are two things to do. The first is
reading this post, which adumbrates the legal protection
of biotechnological inventions and lists relevant provisions as they affect the
hottest issues of that field. The second is signing up for theLife Sciences IP
Summit 2014 where those topics
-- and many more -- will be analysed by a team of acknowledged biotech guys and gals. A media partnership with the IPKat weblog, the seminar will take place from 12 to 14
November in the lovely city of Amsterdam: all manner of discounts are available to those who qualify for them.

The habit of using
smartphones and similar amenities to record events instead of truly living them
while they are occurring should be morally forbidden. Beyond that, guest
blogger Dorothea Thompson observes, the practice appears to be rather disturbing
to artists such as singer Kate Bush, and might amount to copyright
infringement. How might this despicable phenomenon be fought? And, most of all,
is doing so in the right-holders’ interest?

*She’s Got BetteDavis’…Trademark?Can
legendary celebrities’ names, likenesses and images be protected under IP law and the right of publicity? This is the subject of a couple of proceedings that took
place in the US where jewellery featuring a line of products named
"The Bette Davis Eyes" was up against the company that holds the rights
related to the iconic Hollywood actress. Marie-Andrée recounts how it went.

* BREAKING NEWS: CJEU says that one has the "right to be forgotten" from offensive parodiesThis was the moment the Court of Justice of
the European Union (CJEU) issued its long-awaited decision in Case
C-201/13 Deckmyn [on which
see Eleonora’s earlier posts here and here]. The case concerned various controversial topics, such as what “parody” means under the Information Society
Directive and how to strike a balance between freedom of expression and right-holders’ interests when it comes to parodies.

* Early thoughts on Deckmyn: fun is OK, but only if politically correctIn a follow-up post on Case C-201/13 Deckmyn, Eleonora provides some in-depth food for thought
by analysing three tricky aspects of the
decision. First, are Member States free to implement exceptions
taken from Article 5 of the Information Society Directive catalogue independently
from what the CJEU says? Secondly, does parody have to comply with the originality
requirement? Thirdly, is the CJEU imposing moral boundaries to define what falls
within the concept of copyright-permissible parody?

* Boosting Pharma Innovation after TRIPS: lessons to be learnedJeremy reviews Boosting
Pharmaceutical Innovation In The Post-TRIPS Era: Real-Life Lessons for the
Developing World, a lovely little book by Burcu Kilic. According to the publisher Edward Elgar,
the book “illustrates the crucial role that patent
strategies play within processes of pharmaceutical innovation” by “drawing on extensive country and company
case studies” from the United States, Japan,
South Korea and Israel and identifying “the key issues relevant to the
revival of local pharmaceutical industries”. That
book's web page is here.

* The skilled person - more knowledgeable than ever beforeDavid covers
the exciting pharma-patent ruling in Teva UK Limited & another v
AstraZeneca AB[2014] EWHC 2873 (Pat) by Mr Justice Sales in the Patents Court for England and Wales,
which focuses on the concept of Common General Knowledge (CGK). As David
explains in this crystal-clear post (even for those who, like the author of this round-up, are absolutely non-addicted to patents), CGK is understood and assessed differently in patent law and practice around the globe, and this is relevant to a number of issues, like the
inventive step requirement and its polar-star, the legendary person skilled in
the art. Is this hypothetical figure somehow evolving, David asks?

* Money Mapping opposes Moneymap: it's no use where there's no use ...Jeremy
recounts the tale of Integrated Financial Arrangements plc's application; opposition of Motu Ltd (0-334-14), a recent decision by Katfriend
and Appointed Person Anna Carboni on appeal from the UK Intellectual Property
Office. In that case, the earlier trade mark “Money Mapping” was opposed to two
trade mark applications for “MONEYMAP” and “Money Map”, all these marks being in connection with
financial services. The decision concerns proof of use principles, use of trade
mark in a form different from that registered, and the possibility to file
new evidence during the appeal.

* Not all"dollars" are the same: the saga of Family Dollar, Dollar Tree and Dollar GeneralThere’s an on-going three-way takeover battle
between the US retail companies Dollar General, Family Dollar and Dollar Tree.
There being a virtually infinite number of possible words that one can adopt
for use as a trade mark, how comes that so many undertakings --often advised by
their legal counsel -- are ready to risk a bit of consumers’ confusion and choose
descriptive names? Perhaps because distinctiveness is not always essential to
trade mark function (and value), Neil explains.

Jeremy gives the floor to Katfriend Valentina
Torelli, who tells us about a General Court’s decision concerning the eligibility
of two trade marks composed of some (respectively, five and four) stars in a row
to play a distinctive role and be registered as Community trade marks

* Trade secrets exposed!The last
book Jeremy reviews this week is Trade Secrets and Undisclosed Information.
Edited by a pair of US academics, Sharon
K. Sandeen (Professor of Law, Hamline University
School of Law) and Elizabeth Rowe (UFRF Professor of Law, University of
Florida Levin College of Law), it is a collection of previously-published journal
articles and book chapters concerning trade secrets in the US.

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